Earlier today, I mentioned in a post the idea of ISPs giving priority to certain political viewpoints via prioritization of news organizations likely to hold those viewpoints. A timely mention; Verizon is one of the industry backers of SugarString, a tech news site.. which forbids stories about Net Neutrality or NSA spying, both of which Verizon is on the wrong side of. So now, all Verizon has to do is prioritize its own news site and allow traffic to the others to bog down.﻿

A "salmon cannon" has been deployed in Washington state to launch fish safely over a hydroelectric dam, and it's giving John Oliver hope for the future. If we can use the cannon to fix the salmon-spawning process (that we broke in the first place, but whatever), who knows what else we can achieve with this wondrous invention?

President Obama has called upon the FCC to reclassify broadband providers as Title II common carriers. As an IT professional and ISP employee, I support this position 100%, for several reasons.

First and most obvious, the free and open Internet is essential for real innovation. Companies like Netflix, Pandora, and Facebook, which account for large percentages of Internet traffic in general, could never have gotten off the ground if ISPs had charged them huge tolls due to the amount of traffic they generate. Big companies love to say government regulation stifles innovation, but what they really mean is it stifles their ability to make money.

Second, and related, allowing ISPs to prioritize any traffic allows them to pick the winners. If Comcast wants to roll out or acquire a competitor to Netflix, and decides to prioritize its own service over Netflix, some people will leave Netflix when its performance suddenly suffers, regardless of how bad the competition may be in other ways.

If you'd like a more insidious example, how about if Comcast was allowed to prioritize Fox News' website over CNN's? Or vice versa?

Third, President Obama's position specifically mentions exceptions to the regulations (forbearance) for things like rate controls. This allows the government to mandate Net Neutrality without forcing the ISPs to control prices. That sounds bad for low prices, but let's face it; broadband prices are already not low. I pay $60/mo for basic Internet at home. That's more than my electricity bill some months. And this is one of the few areas where competition is helping, though slowly; the rollout of Google Fiber is spurring the broadband monopolies to provide better service and lower prices. So, while Title II reclassification is important in order to preserve the free and open Internet, other aspects of that reclassification are not so important, and soften the blow for the broadband providers.

Finally, I support this change because the Internet really is a utility. Today, it's every bit as essential to a home as water and power. Kids need it for school, adults need it for work and personal business, and it's useful for so many other things; news, entertainment, shopping, research. We can't have anyone telling us which of these things we will be allowed to do at any given moment, or which sources we may consult in doing them.

I don't know what's going to happen. The FCC could stay its current course and attempt to implement its 'hybrid' solution, or it might listen to the President, or it might do something else entirely. But, I can tell you with certainty, if Title II reclassification does not happen, eventually the ISPs will be not only the gatekeepers of the Internet, but they will be determining which parts of the Internet that you see. If you don't want Comcast, Charter, Verizon and AT&T telling you which websites you can visit, Title II reclassification is the only option.

Consumer advocates urging the FCC to protect net neutrality by reclassifying broadband as a Title II “common carrier” service have picked up a surprising new ally this morning: the President of the United States. In a statement this morning, President…﻿

Any Google Plus wizards want to help me out? I have three circles that I want every post to be shared with by default. If, for example, I removed one of those for one post, the next time I went to post something, I would add it back in, and G+ would return to those three as the default. Well, apparently last time I did that, something got stuck, and now every time I post, I have to add that third circle back in. WTF, G+?﻿

I just sent 'feedback' describing the issue. Open a new post with the wrong circle default, then mouse over 'home' on the upper left, click 'feedback' at the very bottom, describe the issue, highlight the 'To:' box with the wrong circles in it, black out any personal info you want to.﻿

Mustang Owner Reunited With Car Stolen In 1986 After Someone Finally Tried To Register It

Buying your first car is a memory that forever sticks in the brain — especially if that happy glow is short-lived when someone steals it. A California woman who bought her very first car back in 1985 with a little help from her late father only to have it…﻿

Speaking of Oliver, here he is skewering state lotteries. I've always known they're a stupidity tax, but on top of the facts that it's addictive, that winning is ridiculously rare, that winners often get themselves into trouble, and (like the Miss America pageant, which he also skewers) that the amount of money paid out of Lottery funds for charitable purposes is tiny compared to the amount of emphasis those charitable purposes get in their ads, Hollywood accounting comes into play: When lotteries provide additional money for education, for example, the state often takes away the money that was there in the first place. Education gets $100 million from the lottery? Well, that's $100 million in other money that can be taken away from education to provide tax breaks! F**k you, state lawmakers.﻿

Using an IR camera attached to an iPhone, it's possible to steal PIN codes from keypads by reading the heat your fingers left behind. How to thwart this? Touch all the keys while punching in your PIN; this leaves extra heat signatures which render the technique for stealing useless. Hey, +Consumerist...

Mark Rober demonstrates this new simple way for 'bad guys' to steal your ATM pin code without you noticing. Fortunately, the way to prevent this from happening is also very simple. This information is so important to SHARE — help your family and friends protect themselves!